


ending start

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-11
Updated: 2011-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-14 16:37:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/151301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is am unmistakable darkness rising in the north. Those who fought in the war recognize the signs, they know the reasons, but they themselves are by now far too old to fight. They have daughters and sons to tend to, lives to live after all has finally been mended. Their wands have been put down, only used for cooking and cleaning. No more curses, no more hexes, not a jinx passes any more between their lips.</p>
            </blockquote>





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**Author's Note:**

> I remember hearing someone, I can't remember who anymore, say that their biggest problem with the epilogue in _Deathly Hollows_ was how nothing had changed. This is probably hugely anvilicious (insofar as my own particular political opinions are concerned), but here we go. It's named after a song by Metric.

There is am unmistakable darkness rising in the north. Those who fought in the war recognize the signs, they know the reasons, but they themselves are by now far too old to fight. They have daughters and sons to tend to, lives to live after all has finally been mended. Their wands have been put down, only used for cooking and cleaning. No more curses, no more hexes, not a jinx passes any more between their lips.

His name is Robert Ashgrove, and he speaks of a time of strength. He himself is muggle-born, (he says,) he is no biggot. He does not hate muggles, he does not speak only for the rich and the pure. He knows what it is to be poor. He is a simple man, (he says to the crowds that converge around the podium when he speaks,) he only wants the wizarding world to be strong, now that it is so safe.

At first, he only speaks of perhaps sending squibs to live with muggles, so they need not know the pain of having magic in a magical society. Quietly, though, his followers whisper of cullings. Quietings, they call it. (Peacings, say the more fanatical.)

Witches should wear the traditional robes of old, he says, with the long gloves to hide their wrists and the closed black capes. They should be proud of their heritage, says Ashgrove, proud to be strong, virtuous witches. He does not ask the same of the men. (His followers whisper of the failures and weaklings, wearing too little or too much, rich or poor.)

All of Ashgrove's followers come from poor families, so no one points out how all of them are white men. They are all strong magicians, and isn't that the only thing that matters?

The old herbology teacher, never a very strong magician himself, is found dead in his study. It looks like an accident, and so that is what it is called, in the papers.

Harry Potter is old, now. His children have children. Albus speaks against Ashgrove, while James goes to see him, at his rallies. Lily says nothing, being a squib herself. Only, thank Merlin her children are strong. Thank Merlin they are like _her_ father, and _her_ mother.

Thank Merlin they are not weak like she is.

There is a darkness, unmistakable, rising in the north. Ron Weasley sees it, and Hermione Weasley-Granger sees it too. They speak against him at the dinner table, when their children come to visit. Never in public. It is too dangerous, and they are too old.

"You have no right to say," says Pollux, one of Rose's boys. His brother, Castor, agrees. "No right at all. You were always strong, at magic. He is not targeting _you_."

Meanwhile, Castor and Pollux try to conjure up any magic they can, being scarcely good at jinxes or charms or hexes. They can care for magical creatures, though. They have a certain skill for extracting venom, charming beasts. But no hexes, no charms.

Their deaths, too, are declared an accident.

"Perhaps it is better this way," says Scorpius. "The weak are dying out. Perhaps this is best."

But his father will not hear it. His father does not want his family to be caught on the wrong side of the war once again. And Draco Malfoy knows when a war is coming. He has not forgot.

The house-elves, working until their bones ache, say nothing as their numbers are picked off for sport. They fear freedom forced upon them unearned, forced from their jobs without honor. There is no alternative.

They work, and if the name of Dobby circulates their numbers, it is always hushed up by teatime.

The giants stir. The centaurs sleep uneasy. The goblins begin to disappear.

In the north, a light is rising. She does not have a scar. She does not search for a wand, a stone, a cloak. She is not chosen (except perhaps for choosing herself). She is not made (except perhaps for making herself).

She has supporters, too, though they are much more quiet than Ashgrove's.

Nel Beaumains is the daughter of two squibs, with little magic to call to her name. She hides herself well. She does not take Ashgrove's new Magical Registry Test, unwilling to know how her magic scores on a scale of one to eight hundred (the fabled Harry Potter scored a 799, they say. Only Ashgrove has ever scored the solid eight-double-oh).

"Why does it matter?" asks Nel.

"Well, it doesn't," some reply. "Only, it is very nice, to be strong."

People who score below a hundred begin to disappear in the night, or die in accidents that are becoming more and more common. Lily Potter takes the test, and scores a 101; she cries happy tears as she leaves the poling station. Rumors begin that her score was only due to being Harry Potter's daughter, someone Ashgrove did not want to have to kill. That would be terrible press.

Meanwhile, the scores begin to be released publicly.

"Why does it matter?" shouts Nel.

"It shouldn't," answers her followers, her friends.

Nel does not have enough magic to be strong, not that way. She focuses on allies. She speaks with the giants and makes her case. She speaks with the house elves, and takes them to the little grave near Shell Cottage. She speaks with the centaurs, and looks up at the stars. She speaks with the goblins, and gives her heirlooms back, for perhaps they were not truly even hers.

She speaks with Harry Potter on his death bed, and seeks his advice. Do not keep secrets. Do not lie. Gather your friends. Don't go alone.

The final battle, when few think of Ashgrove as a reformer anymore, topples the astronomy tower in Hogwarts, because of the giants who fight on Nel's side needed something to throw. But, some say, that tower was filthy; the castle had not been cleaned in some time, since the house elves had left it. The goblins fight violently, and many die under their wrought-iron blades, but the battle is won. Ashgrove finally falls.

Nel calls for reform, now, but few listen. Many only wish to return to the old ways, in the golden age of Harry Potter and his friends, many of which fell in the final battle, creeping out of their retirement to cast curses for the final time. The house elves go back to work. The giants and centaurs go back to their exile. The goblins' treasures are taken from them once more. Nel Beaumains dies alone, gone but not forgot. Not entirely. Only mostly.

And, fifty years later, a darkness rises in the south. Her name is Cassiopeia Parkinson, and she calls for purity and cleansing.


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